San Francisco has become the poster child for how to not to grow a city
Empty storefronts waiting for a new life on Mission Street in San Francisco.
San Francisco has reached the international stage as our City Fathers hoped it would, but, the script is not the one they planned. San Francisco’s up-zoning gentrification scheme pushed land values too high too fast and the economy burst wide open. You can only sell high priced living to rich people and they are the first to leave the sinking ship.
Up-zoning may have worked at a slower pace given more care and thought and an honest appraisal of the changes and expansion of infrastructure needed to keep the community functioining. The frenzied pace of the growth machine killed the golden goose that was laying the golden eggs. It was the insanity of the moment and the thrill of the kill that drove the people from affordable homes to the streets.
Who thought that evicting marginal people living in SROs out of their low rent homes would end well? Go back to the original SPUR predictions published in the SF Guardian, The Plan Bay Area anticipated 40% displacement of the population. They were pretty accurate except for the fact that many of those people did not leave the city, they just moved onto the sidewalk.
Landowners welcomed the inflation of their land values. It did not occur to them that all other costs of living would go up simultaneously, and they would find themselves stuck in their high value homes with increasing property taxes and maintenance costs. The injection of a lot of high paid techies pushed the cost of living over the heads of everyone. City leaders did not plan for the problems that came with the too fast too soon changes they embraced. And so we are here now dealing with those infamous unintended consequences.
If I were going to warn anyone about how to grow a city, I would say take it slow so everyone can adapt to changes. Don’t play the game San Francisco played. Don’t allow people to destroy your city so they can build it back better. Force them to wait in line with everyone else.
